singletracked:

You are Norman Tebbit and I claim my £5.

In some ways it is like being at a picnic. Everyone has nice plates but when it comes to me and my partner I get a paper plate, while being told “Well it works just like a plate, holds stuff just the same. Why should you have a real plate, be happy with what you’ve got.”

I really don’t see any issues here apart from person A trying to tell person B how to live their lives.

[list]
[*]Civil weddings for those who are not religious.[/*]
[*]Religious weddings for those who are into god/s. The churches are a club and can decide members they let in.[/*]
[/list]

Not really Mefty, you are ignoring questions put to you.

Based on your own arguments there is discrimination: it is currently against the law for a gay Christian couple to be married in an accepting church. They do not posses the right that others have; an absence of rights, no?

Do you wish to debate this point?

What additional new rights, opportunities or responsibilities would the introduction of same-sex marriage achieve? Other than the ability to say you are married, which you already do.

There is little difference. So why not call something that walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, is duck shaped and has duck genes…. a duck?

Unless you want to treat people differently, of course. But if you want to do that, what is it called again?

Err…. discrimination, perhaps?

EDIT: just to add that I don’t care if two christians want to get married. Why is it any of their business if I were to want to do so?

Oops, EDIT2: What about those gay people who call themselves christian that want to get their partnership blessed by their accepting church? That *is* discrimination, pure and simple, and is a difference between CP and marriage.

Hi Scaredypants,

Apple do a trackpad (bluetooth). They’re pretty nifty.

Sorry Mefty but your arguments are can only be described as “yeah, but” then ignoring what others have said.

Here’s a link from a quick googling which shows Sikhs and Muslims joining the Catholic Church in the uk against gay marriage: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2012/03/20/muslims-and-sikhs-oppose-same-sex-marriage/

Again: no cogent argument except hate-speak hiding behind a religion.

Should we ban civil marriages? (19th century)
Should we ban interracial marriages?
Should we ban marriages between those unable to procreate (e.g. Elderly, infertile)?

I must admit I am perplexed. All of my straight friends (religious & non-religious) think its completely bonkers that two people who love each other isn’t the same as two people who love each other. 99% of the people I know would rejoice in any love.

Oh, silly me, I forgot: the love I can feel can’t be as real/deep/squishy as the love between man & woman that the religious have!

(Awaiting “yeah, but that link is for *catholics*!”).

Sorry Mefty, I disagree; the religious people have congregated together in this, so the multiple wives thing is relevant.

I have yet to see one cogent argument for discrimination on this issue. But then again within my lifetime it will happen; I guess at that point I’ll have to run outside to see the sky falling in!

As our US cousins say: “haters gonna hate”!

Mefty:

Yes, I am being discriminated against; a few times I have had to slap down some bigot who does the old “but you’re not really married!” guff. It’s just logical to use a single word for both; having two forms is discriminatory. Unless you think it’s ok for us to swap things around and straight people have CP’s and gay people have marriage? You think Christians would be happy with keeping the distinction that way?

Mefty you seem to think that “marriage” has been a constant over the millennia. It’s untrue; it was around before Christianity, people of power had more than one wife (in bible too, and Mormonism obviously; I think some Muslims can have multiple wives). The same bigoted arguments were used from religious people to try to stop interracial marriage. Marriage isn’t a constant, like everything else it changed over time.

*Pops in*

HI EMSZ! *Waves frantically*

Oh. We still arguing this? Lost cause, methinks. Everyone I know refers to He Who Must Be Obeyed as my husband, not ‘civil partner’, ‘partner’ or ‘boyfriend’ and says that we are ‘married’.

So the intolerant religious types can go stuff it. Word meanings and society have already moved on, and they’re on the losing side. I wouldn’t get married in a church for all the tea in China *and* India, but, unlike the religious ones: each to their own. The Quakers, I believe, want to hold same-sex ceremonies. Who are the other churches to tell them what to do? *And* they make good porridge too. 😀

I personally think God is not a homosceptic and would not have a problem with lady gayers or bumders. They are after all generally nice people, quite creative and all very well dressed (Elton John aside).

Coffee-out-of-nose-time.

Not been called a bumder before. I think I’ll have to appropriate that. 😀

Hi Folks,

Resident gayer popping in, if anyone has any questions related to gayering. 🙂

Singletracked: my personal belief is that there is a much larger scale than the Kinsey one, a continuum of sexualities between gay & straight. Again my belief is that there may be a genetic predisposition to gayness that is activated by first years’ experiences.

All I can say for me is that I have never, ever, fantasised about the ladies. Only hunky men! 😀

As for religion, it is different. You take a child from birth, hide all aspects of religion from it then at 18 tell them about all faiths and none and let them read the holy books, I imagine some would be “spiritual” but most would hate the violence/misogyny/hatred in there. On the other hand I knew I fancied Mr Hume, the geography teacher, like crazy, even when I didn’t have the word “gay” to attach myself to! (He was well gorgeous!).

My 2p’s worth anyhow.

Eh? Thought this was STW!

Wee in his shoes and own him with bombers?

🙂

Binners: thought “Londonistan” was something made up by that awful Melanie Phillips?

Sort of agree that it’s good that we have due process open to all. It shouldn’t have taken as long as it did and I will be having an obligatory beer & bacon sarnie shortly.

That’ll have been a Bahama, and they work very differently to a 280 RSF, the 280 has a paddle flow switch.

You know your stuff! 🙂

The biggest pile of poo I ever saw. When I finally got rid, after the low sensors went, again, replacements leaked and part of the plastic tubing started dripping I got a W-B. Told all those who came to give quote for new system that I would consider any but Baxi. One refused to quote (think he got Baxi cheaper) the others all suggested W-B.

BTW: never ask BG fo a quote: they quoted > £5000 for the same boiler I got for ca. £2300!

Flow sensors? I had a Baxi that used to et them. Now have a Worcester Bosch and its good.

I do tescos, the only reason being there’s either Tesco or ASDA in my town and I really don’t want to give my money to WalMart.

Tis true, however. My town used to have a single big store: ASDA and then a humungous Tesco turned up next door, about 2 miles away from another one. The town is mainly now charity shops. 🙁

Oh how I wish we could get a Booths in this area!

Adam – the circumstances: monopolies may achieve substantial economies of scale (large plants, centralised admin, less duplication etc). This may lead to their marginal cost curve being substantially below that achieved in perfectly competitive markets. In this scenario a monopoly may produce more goods at a lower price than a firm in a competitive market. That would be good for the consumer. A second set of circumstances is where a monopoly makes sufficient profit to enable it to invest in R&D and other investment and possibly become more efficient that an firm operating in a more competitive market.

Thanks for the clarification! I guess the sticking point would be the price-point at which they sold to the customer, which may need regulation (e.g. specifying they can’t charge more than a certain percentage) else they could create a widget for X but sell it to their monopolised customers at 10X, 100X or 1000X. But this should be the same whether the monopoly is public or private. I would also guess that without competition to create better widgets the monopoly may be able to chuck out many widgets but not improve their product (obviously dependent upon what it is). But that’s most probably a different argument.

Adam – are you being serious? In the OP and afterwards on the first page.

Apologies – I tend to not read the whole lot and this page hadn’t gone on about Thatcher.

Like many things, giving Thatcher the credit, or otherwise, for the idea of contestable markets is stretching the truth somewhat. She may have taken this on board, but she didn’t come up with the idea.

Don’t really care about that. Didn’t like the policies of the woman but have modified my views slightly based upon whether it is good for the consumer or not. Again I still wonder how a monopoly that has a profit motive can be good for the customer.

Disagree partly, however. Markets can only be good if you have more than one vendor…

Actually not true in either theory or practice. Under certain circumstances, monopolies can be better for consumers than lots of competition. Again basic A level economics.

For us to even consider this you must define ‘Under certain circumstances’. Without that your comments can’t really be understood. What do you mean? Based on that sentence we could give the entire country to someone like Serco/Microsoft/Apple/etc. and let them run everything as a monopoly. Or the certain circumstances may mean something which is rarely met so everything should be nationalised.

It was just the Thatcherite comments (don’t think anyone has mentioned her).

Disagree partly, however. Markets can only be good if you have more than one vendor… 😀

Wow. There’s a lot of anger in there THM.

for households there is little point in competition to be the provider as the costs would outweigh any potential gain

So for the home owners it makes no sense to privatise.

fo non-household the arguements are different and there is a strong case for a competitive market as the incumbent water company doesnot seek to provide the cheapest service for the customer rather they seek to perpetuate the status quo

But due to the physical placement of the pipes that is not possible (unless somehow we got a nationalised water grid). So it makes no sense there either.

there are efficiencies to be made in supply and in retail activities that would not occur without a fundamental change which requires a competitive market to be created.

Not sure what this means. There isn’t a competitive market. If so, where’s the competition? Possibly between metering companies or billing operations but that’s nibbling around the edges, its not a truly competitive market. Why does a competitive market produce the efficiencies? What’s to stop a nationalised market making efficiency savings?

However it tends to be the bigger companies that benefit (national billing, bespoke supply agreements) and the smaller players get squeezed as was shown when Scotland created a retail market and non-household complaints went up by a factor of 4

So, if I understand properly, company X buys water company Y and absorbs their billing/retail operations which reduces costs. So they reduce their workforce and increase their profits. And we don’t benefit as it is still a local monopoly. And if they did pass it on it would be in the order of pennies per year.

Unless I’m misunderstanding stuff, which I’ll happily accept if shown.

I’d sooner have the people in work, myself and the profits put back into the utility.

Hi Rudebwoy

The only positive I see is that people are more willing to ditch one and go to another, as a market should work, as compared to our European cousins who stick with who they have regardless of cost.

I have modified my personal position over the years. In a properly-regulated market vendors should be able to pump power into the grid, but since the grid is singular that should stay nationalised. Same for the wires for telephony, the pipes for gas and the entire water industry: if I think my water company is too expensive how do I change companies to one cheaper? They are local monopolies so should not exist in a so-called free-market economy.

Unfortunately the regulators are toothless puppets of the industries they “regulate”, and all politicians are the same. So we’re all doomed! 🙂

Just an added bit of info (I work in the energy market). Mrs T, even though I can’t abide her, did one thing right in the privatisation: she split the market into multiple units based on the PES (public electricity supplier) to give competition. 12 suppliers in all. Most of the new companies, after 1998 deregulation to sub 150kWhr customers, divested themselves of their metering divisions, focussing on retail, distribution, generation and wholesale markets as the metering operation was seen as a cost and not a revenue-generator. Hence the formation of Accuread/Siemens metering as they consolidated.

Retail tends not to bring in much money per customer. Wholesale does, and distribution brings in a nice steady flow for their companies on the sub-30KV lines (above that is national grid). Wholesale is seen (in my co) as an offshoot of generation.

Whats a bit more interesting is how our European colleagues privatised. Germany, for example, split its electricity market into two companies. For a big country. As a result one company we know of: E.On, has loadsa dosh to go out and buy other countrys’ suppliers France hasn’t privatised yet owns a big chunk of our market. (This was also a complaint about BT & British Gas – moving from state monopoly to private one).

I wonder how the pro-free-market-at-any-costs Conservatives think about our free market energy market subsidising the French left-wing government?

The only positive out of this is that the UK customer is more savvy. There’s about a 25% churn in the UK market, but very little churn outside of the UK.

Sorry if this info is a biti disjointed, I’m just brain-dumping to add info to the discussion.

But the data is faulty. The iOS application is just a window onto the data in the cloud. I like to use my iPad to look for trails. Can’t do that in ios6 because the pics are crap. Some places have the same place/monument a couple of miles apart. Nottingham is under cloud. Solihull apparently doesn’t exist and Dudley has moved a few miles south. Apple has mashed together data sets with poor results..

If I can’t trust the data I can’t use the app. And I also use the app daily. And in my house I use mainly Apple products, so no Apple hate here!

Got it but don’t recommend for iPhone 4. iPhone 4s has a nice Siri update and other bits which are nice. “do not disturb” I also useful, but minor.

Obligatory xkcd:

Fundamental atheists [/url]

My birthday today. Everyone is talking piratey at me! 😀

Just remembering old math:

16=24(1-e^(-t/2))

16 = 24 – 24e^(-t/2)

-8 = -24 e^(-t/2)

multiply by -1 both sides:

8 = 24 e^(-t/2)

1/3 = e^(-t/2)

take logs:

ln(1/3) = (-t/2)*ln(e)
-2ln(1/3)/ln(e)=t

But ln(e) = 1
-2 ln(1/3) = t

Which makes t=+2.19722457733624 (since ln(x) where x<1 is negative).

Hi Emsz, if you’re about!

Although try to stretch it beyond 22 minutes.

Don’t know if I can now. I don’t want to deprive you. I know it must be difficult. Try not to cry too much.

EDIT: tell you what, I’ll stay tonight. If that’s what you want. Is this some form of bromance on your side?

EDIT2: Oh, should that be me posting this then?

Oh Ernie. I said I’d be back in a while. I know you’re sad and are waiting earnestly for me.

Is that the best you can do?

The Sea Otter is most disappointed in you.

Ernie – you have so many arguments on here that I agree it must be difficult. Then again you are keeping to your usual modus operandi of discussion so I guess your comment is to be expected.

Thank you for being chastised. I hope you now feel better. Don’t do it again!

And with that, am outta here. May pop back in a few months. There are trails to ride and I really can’t be asked with arguing all the time. Gotta train for Mayhem too! 😀

So he gets the maximum opportunity to put his views across and this represents “bad press” ?

Well presumably he’s only got himself to blame for that.

Not when idiots see someone just chatting then a while later do the ‘Shrill Neo-Militant Atheists!’ routine.

Happens all the while in politics. Look as some of your own ‘arguments’. 😕

I reckon Dawkins gets a lot of bad press. When a telly programme wants to grab a token atheist he tends to be it. Even on his own scale of belief/unbelief in god(s) he comes 6 out of 7 (where 7 is “I know there is no god”) as he’s a scientist and knows you cannot prove a negative. He states he’s agnostic because of it.

I’ve read “The God Delusion” and even in that he says he’d be happy to worship, just show the evidence.

Its now a cliche for religious people to say twaddle like “Atheism *is* a religion and your archbishop is Richard Dawkins!”. I’ll be me own archbishop, thanks.

nick1962 – why did you put “Christians” (sic) in quotes?

EDIT: and atheists without?

Sounds like intolerance to me…. 😀

What bin to use for recycling a Christian Adam, hopefully one with a heavy lid on it.

Only ones that try to tell me how to live my life or how evil I am*. The rest I’m happy to have a beer with.

* – key being set in concrete and thrown into Mariana Trench

Nero Wolfe, obviously!

Sort of reminds me of when I was at college, all those years ago, having lunch in the refectory and someone shouted ‘Everyone listen!’ and did a stupid play about live not being worth anything. Afterwards they came around each table to talk to us about (oh – lets be “contemptuous”) God-squadding and letting someone called Jesus into our lives.

I was having my lunch. Me and my friends, just having our lunch and chatting. We, perfectly correctly, in my view, asked him if it was OK to have a bunch of satanists doing the same thing. Or Hindus, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or … basically any other religion. The answer was ‘no’, obviously.

Very rude words were said to him at that point about him forcing his views upon others and when he tried to challenge us to ‘prove him wrong’ by going to their church and doing the Alpha Course we all said more words and turned our backs to him.

But of course, what we did was intolerant. When someone has asked me to go to church and I’ve asked if I could bring my husband with me the answer has either been a crooked smile, followed by a hasty retreat, ignoring the comment or – at the worst, telling me I was evil, nasty, a PDO, a corrupter and would burn in hell for all eternity.

Of course, I *daren’t* say anything back because that would make me intolerant, of course. Silly me. All that hate directed at me and if I dare say anything to protect myself I should be, to quote someone who doesn’t understand what it is like to be hated just for existing as “a little more tolerant of other people lifestyles choices and beliefs, even when they think these are “wrong””.

Anyone got any tambourines I could use?

Some people really need to be a little more tolerant of other people lifestyles choices and beliefs, even when they think these are “wrong”. There will always be those who think yours are wrong – everyone is, in some way, in a minority. Tolerance and acceptance is the way forward. Which takes us right back to the OP.

Oh, the ironing….

How about printing out some ‘Are you gay? It’s ok to come out’ type info leaflets and stapling them to the god ones?

Dagnabit, good idea. I should have done that.

Just been for a coffee. At the machine waiting and someone has printed out god-squad stuff for people to read and hung it near the machine.

So much for people keeping their religion to themselves.

Fortunately we have recycle bins nearby. 😀